the plantagenet dynasty

The story begins in 1128 with the marriage in Le Mans cathedral of
Geoffrey, Count of Maine and Anjou to Matilda, grand-daughter of William the
Conqueror and widow of a powerful German emperor. Among the wedding gifts was
the prospect of the thrones of England and Normandy (at that time independent
of France as we know it today). Geoffrey loved to hunt and would often stick a
sprig of yellow broom – in French the plante
known as genet – into his cap, and it
was this that earned him the nickname, ‘Plantagenet’.

The count and his bride
had a son, Henry, born in the county palace (now the Hotel de Ville) in Le Mans
in 1133 and baptised in the cathedral. In 1152, the year following his father’s
death, Henry married Eleanor of Aquitaine, a powerful woman whose marriage to
Louis VII had been annulled only two months earlier. With her she brought vast
estates extending from the Loire to the Pyrenees.

Two years later, Henry
became king of England, the first of fourteen hereditary kings, later
collectively referred to as the Plantagenets, a dynasty that now owned a huge
empire reaching from Scotland to the Pyrenean borders with Spain. The 15th
century, however, saw great division in the Plantagenet ranks as the House of York
battled with the House of Lancaster in the English civil war that later became
known as the War of the Roses. Only in 1485, with the death of Richard III at
the Battle of Bosworth Field did the dynasty finally end.

It is an interesting aside that
when, in 1063, with the many counts of France vying to fill a power vacuum,
William (‘the Bastard’, as he was known) sought to gain a base in Le Mans, but
was rejected by its people. Three years later his attention crossed the Channel
with devastating and long-lasting effect. If only the people of Le Mans had
been as accommodating then as they are now!